


In den Herzen ist's warm

by guineapiggie



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, food travel au, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 17:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15394215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guineapiggie/pseuds/guineapiggie
Summary: He can’t help himself, she looks sohappy.There’s that quick flash of bliss and the fascination and the satisfaction that he thinks food should bring to people, and it brings something out in her that he just… he can’t help being affected by it, and he can’t really understand how it doesn’t affect everyone else in the same way. It’s like a light has been turned on inside of her, and it’s glowing through all the cracks and paper-thin spots of this fierce, quiet, damaged woman, and she’sbeautiful.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> to get yourself into a Christmas-y mood (it IS July), I suggest the soundtrack of a Christmas classic 'round these parts, a fairy tale movie that was filmed near Dresden and in the Czech Republic in the 70's: [Three Wishes for Cinderella (music by Karel Svoboda)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeLWlY_YvVY&list=PLCE4B3D2D196A7DA1)

[Here is the text with pictures, mostly from December 2018](http://ruby-red-inky-blue.tumblr.com/post/181249540177/christmas-repost-in-den-herzen-ists-warm-food)

* * *

 

Germany welcomes them back with a dark sky like wet concrete and light drizzle soaking the specks of snow still left on the grassy patches by the motorway.

“Well, that looks fucking inviting,” Shara says darkly, frowning through the windshield at the big building to the right. “How isn’t it _lighter?_ It’s like two PM.”

Kes groans and rolls his shoulders with a slight grimace. “Where are we again? I lost my schedule.”

“Keeping it professional, Dameron –“

“Dresden,” Cassian says, and after brief consideration digs a scarf out of his backpack.

“This is the one with the Christmas market, right? That looked really nice.”

“Not in this weather it won’t,” Kay says indignantly and pulls the zipper of his jacket shut.

“Where exactly are we?” Shara asks, frowning out through the fogged-up window. “I’m buying a fucking umbrella right now.”

“We’re at the [main station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Hauptbahnhof),” Draven says, getting to his feet and making his way to the door. “The weather is said to be better tomorrow, so we’ll tape the main bits on the market then. We quite liked the footage we got from you guys just exploring, so we’re giving you the rest of the day, just run around, see what you find. I’m gonna have to borrow Shara and Kes for a bit tonight, but otherwise –“

“Alright.” Cassian nods. “I’d quite like to get some lunch, actually.”

“Maybe go to the old town,” Jyn says. “I’ve seen pictures, it should look nice on camera.”

“Again, not in this weather,” Shara repeats, tucks her hair underneath her hood and steps out of the bus with a face like she was about to brave a hurricane.

Cassian shrugs. “We’ll find something.”

The cold drizzle feels just as unpleasant as it looked from inside the air-conditioned bus, and there’s also a sharp wind that he was absolutely not prepared for within the confines of the city.

“Hotel is that way?” Kes asks, turning to Draven.

“No, that way.” The director frowns at the grey sky in annoyance, then makes his way around the building with long steps.

“By the way, remember how they’ve thrown some of the footage from the last few weeks together for the first trailer?” Luke asks, his usual chipper mood unaffected by the unpleasant weather. “It looks like it screened really well with our test audiences –“

“Yeah, that was all me,” Kes says with a smirk, which actually elicits a scoff from their director.

“We edited all of your abysmal camerawork out, of course, Dameron.”

“Yeah. Never change careers, Kes,” Jyn says, and Cassian smiles faintly into his scarf while Dameron rolls his eyes at her.

“You just don’t want to admit you have a natural talent in your midst –“

“Guys, I wasn’t finished,” Luke says loudly, laughing. “So it did well with the screen audience, and we’re about to drop the trailer probably tomorrow.”

Cassian nods slowly. “This is the trailer you showed to us in Munich?”

“Yeah, they put some music over it and stuff, but yeah, that’s the one.” Luke buries his hands in his pockets and adds with a grin: “So I need everyone to be a _little_ more active on twitter and stuff, okay?”

“By everyone you mean –“

“Our main man, mostly,” he says pointedly, throwing Cassian a look. “And Jyn, too. People _like_ you, Erso,” he adds when Jyn groans, “the posts with you in did way better than the others! So can you do that, please?”

Jyn just throws Luke a sour look, and Cassian sighs. “Yeah. Sure.”

The main station looks much prettier from the front, but still, his first impression of the city isn’t necessarily impressive – a lot of grey, somehow, though that might be the weather; generic glass buildings, drab blocks of apartments, wide streets lined with trees that look a little sad all wet and with the last few dry leaves clinging to the branches.

“Are you planning to get food afterwards?” Kay asks, catching up with him without any hurry with his ridiculously long legs. “I have read up on the city –“

“Of course,” Cassian says, more to himself, and Kay, as ever, doesn’t pick up on his drop in mood.

“- and there is a historical bridge that might be interesting, a change of scenery, and there is a farmer’s market nearby that should be open for another few hours. It would give you a few nice shots, provide information on local vegetables and such –“

“Yeah,” he mutters absent-mindedly, watching Jyn who’s walking by herself, fallen behind Luke, Shara and Draven. Shara’s and Kes’s needling is annoying when they do it in private, but the fact that they’re not only doing it in public but that people are actually _enjoying_ that so much is clearly not cool with her. He can’t say he’s wild about it, either, but that’s show business, and unlike her, he _chose_ this, and he’ll live with it.

Still. He _likes_ her, even though that’s probably not a productive sentiment, and even though he’d bite off his tongue before he’d admit it – he doesn’t want this to make things weird between them.

(Probably too late for that, now. Goddamn it.)

 

The farmer’s market is tiny – according to Kay, or more precisely Google, there is a bigger one somewhere else, but it’s on Fridays. Jyn still insists very pointedly on shooting a little footage – he has a feeling she is trying to remind everyone that she is here as a camera operator first and foremost – that he is quick to tell her looks really good.  

(Because it does.

Not because he thinks she needs to hear it. It is good. She _is_ a really good camera operator.)

It’s a nice place to shoot, though – many more old houses here, narrower streets and the small cobbled square leading down to the river, with the bridge high above them.

It’s called the “[Blue Wonder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loschwitz_Bridge)” because it was, supposedly, a striking shade of bright blue once, but it looks fairly grey to him now, which seems to be a bit of a theme in this part of the country. It looks nice, though; the bridge was built around the same time as the Eiffel tower and the architecture does remind him of it. And the view from it down the river is pretty spectacular; the river bank opposite is lined with beautiful villas and little castles far above the water, and the river meandering off into the distance between the green hills makes for a nice sight in and off itself – he can’t tell what direction it flows, so he is left to wonder if he’s staring back towards the Czech Republic or to where the river will eventually lead to the North Sea via Hamburg.

For a moment, his attention is drawn by a small plate on the balustrade. It’s all in German, but the year mentioned – 1945 – catches his eye. He is halfway through slowly entering the text into Google translate when Shara stops a young woman and asks her what it says. After a little back and forth they learn that the bridge, like apparently all other bridges in the city, was supposed to be destroyed at the end of the war in a last-ditch attempt to stop the Red Army from taking the city, but two local men on either side of the bridge decided to risk their lives and cut the fuses to stop the famous landmark from being sacrificed for a lost cause. Of course, Cassian knew that Dresden, simply by virtue of being a big city in Germany, must have been deeply influenced by the war, and he did notice that most of the buildings they passed around the central station looked to be from the sixties or after, but this little plate for the first time makes him realise the weight of it. He wonders how much this bridge must have meant to that generation, if people were willing to risk their lives to preserve that last bit of familiar architecture left standing, and if this bridge still holds that place in people’s heart here now. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches Jyn glancing up at the metal structures with a ponderous expression on her face, and he feels like they are thinking the same thing.

There is a big restaurant by the foot of the bridge that serves traditional local cuisine – it looks pretty touristy, there’s a beer garden attached to it, conveniently situated right next to the big bike lane by the river side; but they’re all cold and damp and hungry, so they decide to go for it anyway.

 _“[Soljanka](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyanka),_ ” Luke reads out, dropping down on a chair with a menu in hand, frowning. “What’s that?”

“Well, it’s listed under _soups,_ ” Jyn points out, leaning over his shoulder to get a better view at the menu in his hands. There’s an easiness to that, to the sudden closeness between them, and something twitches in his stomach at the sight of it… he should really get something to eat.

“’sup-ee? That mean soup?”

“We should just ask for an English menu,” Kes says.

“Why? We’ll just point on something and see what we’ll get,” Shara replies, nudging his shoulder. “We can all afford to live a little more dangerously, right, Jyn?” she adds with a wink.

Jyn sighs and absent-mindedly rubs at a spot on the table top, shaking her head.

“That name doesn’t sound very German, right?” Cassian says hastily, which is a very uninformed statement – the only thing he’s gathered about the language so far is that, even though they supposedly spoke German in Munich and they supposedly speak German here, the people sound nothing alike. He wonders if they’d understand each other at all. It’s funny how the language is so different when the cities are only some three-hundred miles apart; if he asked Kay about that he’d probably have some annoyingly logical explanation, but he’s not sure he wants one. It adds to the mystical vibe he gets from this place, somehow. He likes that.

“Nah, sounds kinda Russian, right?” Shara muses, craning her neck to get a glance at the menu.

Kay gives the exasperated sigh Cassian has been somewhat waiting for since they’ve sat down. “Well, yes. It probably _is_ Russian.”

“I’m not great at geography, but aren’t we _kinda_ far from Russia right now?” Luke says with a mocking little grin and Kay throws him a long-suffering look.

“Yes, they don’t share a border with Germany. But Dresden was in Russian-occupied territory after the war, and it _was_ the third-biggest city in the GDR, a state that was extremely closely affiliated with the Soviet Union. Putin was actually stationed here in the Eighties, for the KGB. And there is still a big Russian community here, so yes. That’s probably Russian soup.”

Luke, who has blushed slightly at the callout, rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair. “Thanks, Captain Exposition,” he mutters and hands the menu over to Jyn. “You wouldn’t happen to know what’s _in_ it, too?”

Kes reaches over to the next table and fishes another menu off it, then a triumphant smile tugs at his lips as he flips it open and reads out:

“Soup with beef, ham, sausages, chicken, tomatoes, onions, pickled cucumbers, served with lemon and sour cream.”

Luke frowns. “Okay. So, like, _all_ the meat, basically.”

Jyn smiles faintly and again there’s that twinge in Cassian’s stomach. It hasn’t been _that_ long since breakfast, really.

“Leftovers,” Cassian says with a shrug. “That’s probably what it was at the beginning. Can I see the menu?”

.

Luke winds up with the soup, mostly because Shara was gearing up to tease him the moment he started looking at other things, and despite the odd combination of ingredients, everyone but Kes agrees it tastes pretty good. Kay and Kes stick with schnitzel and fries, causing Cassian to roll his eyes at them; Shara gets a thick potato stew with sausage in it which is supposedly also a regional classic. [Jyn’s dish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragout_fin) turns out to be a small ovenproof bowl filled with stewed chicken, mushrooms and a white sauce covered in melted cheese. The young waiter who brings it to their table – presumably their original waiter has sent someone with better English – explains it is traditionally served with Worcestershire Sauce and lemon, and warns her not to touch the hot china with a smile that Cassian finds slightly _too_ friendly. Jyn returns the smile for a moment, too, which makes things worse.

(Aren’t Germans supposed to be closed-off and unfriendly, anyway?)

 _Jesus, Andor, get a fucking grip,_ he tells himself and shakes his head, trying to get rid of the thought, and does his best to return his attention to the food.

Because the food is why he’s here.

He notices both Luke’s and Jyn’s meals taste pretty sour, both due to the lemon and the vinegar in the dishes, perhaps so they can be stored longer without going bad; and then there’s the small amount of ingredients in most of them. He doesn’t know much about the history, but he vaguely remembers reading something about unavailability or shortage of certain foods in the GDR, and about how several traditional German recipes now have an Eastern variation because the original ingredients weren’t at hand during the Cold War.

Cassian gets a meal composed of [meatballs in béchamel sauce and capers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6nigsberger_Klopse), boiled potatoes and a small salad that he shoves over to Jyn after a glance at her tiny, though very tasty, dish. The first bites of his food are fairly bland, and only after a little while and a mental reminder of the fact that most spices he grew up with don’t grow in this weather and therefore obviously aren’t used in the traditional cuisine does he get over the slightly underwhelming first impression.

“Well?” Luke says, pointing the camera of his phone at him, a brow raised. “What’s the verdict?”

“I like it,” Cassian replies slowly. “It’s very… I don’t know, refined? Simple, though. It’s good.”

“I really like mine, you need to try it,” Jyn adds, even attempting something like a smile for the Instagram viewers. A few more weeks, and she’ll completely upstage him.

(It’s not like he minds. In fact, he sympathises – it seems he can hardly take his eyes off her either.)

.

They take a trip to the [New Town](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innere_Neustadt_\(Dresden\)) via the – thankfully much less complicated – public transport. No subway in Dresden, just packed tramways; but he enjoys the view of the Old Town from the bridge as they’re crossing the river, and earns an approving grin from Luke when he gets out his phone to film a small clip for Instagram. The New Town was recommended to them for its more international and individual vibes and its general status as the more trendy part of the city. It immediately feels like that, too, filled with graffiti and small kebab joints and little bars and young people. Paradoxically, for the most part the buildings seem older to Cassian than in the Old Town on the other side of the river, and it takes him embarrassingly long to realise that this place probably just wasn’t hit by as many bombs as the other side of the river.

They decide not to get dinner in this part of town as it’s mostly fusion cuisine, but they find a cute little café where they stop for a traditional German coffee-and-cake session. Cassian still isn’t convinced by the overall infatuation Germans have with litres and litres of drip coffee, but the slice of cake he gets – something called _[Eierschecke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eierschecke), _ apparently a type of cake the region is famous for – is absolutely delicious. Generally, he decides that so far, this region has mostly been best for cake; Jyn’s slice of [apple pie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streuselkuchen) is a perfect balance between sour and sweet, Shara’s poppy seed cake is neither too soggy nor too dry and Luke’s cake, a mixture of cheesecake and chocolate cake that is called [_Russischer_ _Zupfkuchen_](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russischer_Zupfkuchen)but that according to the internet isn’t actually Russian, tastes far better than Cassian expected from that combination.

They return to the [Old Town](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden#Main_sights) as night falls, and catch a glorious first glimpse of [the Christmas markets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striezelmarkt) in every available square, glittering through the damp night as they walk across the bridge. After a little bickering, Kay gets out his camera to film them as they make their way through the crowds by the baroque [church](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche) dominating the skyline. The building towers over them, warmly illuminated from inside and casting light across the old town square. They pass stand upon stand of food, hot drinks, vendors selling wool items and furs and pottery and [traditional wooden and glass Christmas decoration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striezelmarkt#Features_of_today's_Striezelmarkt). The smells around them make their mouths water, sweets and roasted almonds and spices and mulled wine and meat and potatoes and vegetables roasting over open fire, and in the end, despite all the food they’ve already had, they decide to each get a little something. Jyn buys a bowl of steaming hot [goulash soup](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulash#Germany), Cassian winds up with a traditional German bratwurst with mustard in a roll, and Luke finds a dish called  _[lángos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1ngos) _ which they guess might be Czech or Hungarian, which turns out to be ham, garlic and an obscene amount of cheese on a soft dough, deep fried in oil, and even though they all agree it’s probably the least nutritious thing in the world, it tastes _amazing_.

“What do you say, Jyn?” Luke says, grinning, and almost _actually_ shoves his phone into her face as a big group of tourists pushes past them.

“It’s _so_ good,” she says, through a mouthful of it, grinning back. “’s amazing. But you guys need to try my soup.”

Some part of him knows Luke will turn the camera to him any moment and catch him just standing there with his food in hand, staring at her like a besotted puppy. He can’t help himself, she looks so _happy._ There’s that quick flash of bliss and the fascination and the satisfaction that he thinks food should bring to people, and it brings something out in her that he just… he can’t help being affected by it, and he can’t really understand how it doesn’t affect everyone else in the same way. It’s like a light has been turned on inside of her, and it’s glowing through all the cracks and paper-thin spots of this fierce, quiet, damaged woman, and she’s _beautiful._

God, he’s in such trouble. He shouldn’t be having these thoughts, he just shouldn’t; she’s already uncomfortable with Shara’s and Kes’s stupid jokes as it is, and besides, he’s supposed to be a professional. They work together, and that’s supposed to be all.

(As much as he catches himself wishing it wasn’t - that’s supposed to be all.)

Her green eyes suddenly find his, and the smile on her face catches, just a little, and in the middle of all these people and this beautiful old foreign town and all the smells and the music and the lights – it stings.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [(music mentioned at the beginning)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpaNo4mWRBE)

The next morning, he wakes up feeling stiff and cranky and neither well rested nor in a mood for Christmas-time, despite the fact that they’ve had an objectively good time the previous evening, and a pretty early night. Draven had found an opportunity to sneak them into rehearsals for [a Christmas concert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_Oratorio) in one of the churches. Jyn and Kay seemed to recognise what they were playing; according to Kay, the actual concert took several hours and was, apparently, a Christmas classic. Jyn hadn’t said anything, but the melancholic little smile on her face led him to think that she too had heard it before. Cassian doesn’t know a lot about music, let alone classical music, so he’d had no clue what they were listening to, but he’d liked it; there was a something calm and solemn about it, the same quiet festivity as to the other traditions they’ve been introduced to so far.

Still, he’d gone to bed feeling a little down somehow, and it hasn’t gone away overnight as he’d hoped. Maybe a coffee will fix it, and if it doesn’t – he’ll just have to walk it off. They’re taping, and there’s no space for him to not feel like talking to strangers and smiling and laughing at feeble jokes.

(And the memory of Jyn with her sad little smile, leaning against the pillar in the semi-darkness between the dark corners of the church and the warm light from the chandelier – there most certainly won’t be space for that, not for a very long time.)

He shakes his head and splashes some more cold water in his face before he makes his way down to breakfast with the others.

 

The rain has ceased, which is good for the equipment, but the sky out the window is still of a very unappealing shade of grey, dark wisps of clouds rapidly drawing closer.

Shara thinks it’ll rain again, Kes, of course, says it’ll blow over. Jyn gives a quick glance at the sky and says:

“Maybe we’ll get some snow.”

There’s something in her voice, hopeful – wistful almost. It tugs at something in Cassian’s chest, and he tries his best not to let it show and pushes past the others towards the buffet. He _really_ needs to stop this. _Concentrate on the goddamn food, would you,_ he tells himself firmly, but the buffet doesn’t offer any help on that front; it’s the usual rolls and slices of toast and bread they’ve seen in Munich, jam and honey as well as cheeses and ham, some fruit and vegetables, scrambled eggs and a sparse selection of sweet pastry and a few slices of cake so dry he’s pretty sure it’s at least a day old, probably two. The only thing vaguely exciting it offers is Hungarian salami – and the coffee he’s been hoping for, thankfully of the stronger variety.

Since the main attraction in Dresden as far as the show is the Christmas market, which by all accounts is best enjoyed after sunset, they have the next seven hours for themselves. Shara, Luke and Kes have resolved to make a trip to the [nearby national park](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saxon_Switzerland), but while Cassian can see the appeal of that fairy tale-like landscape they’ve seen on postcards around the city, covered in mist and specks of snow – there’s no way he will climb a slippery rock needle in this weather. Jyn looked intrigued by the idea yesterday, and as it comes up again, he has to swallow down the urge to make up some stupid pretence to keep her around. It’s not _just_ that he generally enjoys her presence, though that’s an embarrassingly big part of it – he feels like she is more attuned to this place than he currently is, more receptive to the magic of it, and as much as he appreciates Kay’s sudden and unnervingly detailed commentary, that’s what he needs most to make this into the enjoyable segment it should be.

The thing is, with Kay back in the picture he has lost his one legitimate argument to keep her around, and besides – she’s a free woman, for God’s sake, he has no right to tell her where she should or shouldn’t go, no matter how much he _wants_ to ask her to stick around.

“I’d love to come,” she says with a shrug and pours herself more tea, “but I didn’t bring the kind of clothes for that. What are you guys doing?” she adds before Cassian has the time to process the information.

“I believe I will see the [painting exhibition in the Zwinger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gem%C3%A4ldegalerie_Alte_Meister),” Kay says and takes a sip of his tea. “The Sistine Madonna is on display there. I would not mind anyone coming along, but I do mean to go see the art and not hold a lecture, so if you are in the mood for conversation, I suggest you stick with Cassian.”

“Right,” Jyn says slowly and Cassian throws her what he hopes to be an apologetic smile while he gets to his feet to refill his cup.

“He means well,” he mutters and she scoffs a little, and Cassian registers a sad spike in his mood because of this, which is a lot more than all this coffee has so far managed to accomplish.

God, when did he turn into _this?_ This is not what he’s like with women. He’s had girlfriends, yes, and he was in love with them, too, but it is _not_ like him to develop this sad, weird fixation. He needs to cut it out, and fast.

(Even thought that’s easier said than done, probably, since he’s currently trapped in what is probably one of the most annoyingly romantic locations he’s ever been to.)

More coffee will fix it. It _has_ to, because it’s that or heavy drinking.

“So, do you have any plans for the day yet?” Jyn asks, sipping at her tea.

“I thought I could go into the [Green Vault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%BCnes_Gew%C3%B6lbe#Exhibition_rooms) before lunch, and see from there.”

“Sounds like you’re about to rob a bank,” she mutters and throws him a faint grin, and again, he feels far too accomplished because a girl smiled at him, like he’s twelve years old or something, god damn it. “What is that?”

“It is the largest treasure collection in Europe,” Kay says before he has time to answer. “The collection of the Saxonian kings.”

Cassian sighs. “It’s in the palace, in its original place. Apparently it hasn’t been restored long, and it sounded cool.” He takes a sip from his cup and adds in what he hopes to be a nonchalant tone: “Want to come?”

Shara and Kes share another of their stupid little glances, and oh for God’s sake, he could –

Jyn shrugs. “Yeah, why not?”

He’s not _happy_ to hear that. No. It’s fine, it’s whatever.

Kay throws him a pointed look and he sighs into his coffee. Not even fooling his friend then, apparently. That’s just great.

.

When they leave the hotel, they are greeted by a harsh wind blowing up from the river. The sky seems a little lighter, turned to a strange glowing white that accentuates all the grey around them.

Cassian bristles a little and turns up his collar, but Jyn smiles faintly.

“This is a really cool light,” she says, fiddling with her hand-held camera. “We should try to get a few shots in. Which direction is the museum?”

“Old town, near the [opera ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semperoper)–“

“Oh, can we stop by there first? It’ll only take a few minutes, and it’ll look really good, I promise,” she says, excitedly bobbing up and down on the balls of her feet, and he bites back the fond smile just a tad too late.

“Sure. We should get a few shots of the [Zwinger ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwinger_\(Dresden\))in daylight as well while we’re on it.”

She frowns at him. “I… is that sarcasm, or…?”

“No! Come on, you do your job,” he says with a laugh. “You say it’ll look good, I trust you.”

“It will. Really,” she says with a grin, tugging her scarf into her collar. “Like, the stone they use here with the colour of the sky and the green roofs and the trees against it, it’ll look so good.”

She sounds so _pleased._ He manages to contain himself a little more this time, but – _fuck,_ it’s so cute. And… no, maybe cute is the wrong word. He’s fascinated by it, by her enthusiasm and her passion. He feels so understood when she acts like this, because it tells him she’d never be the kind of person who’d stand next to him going, _dude, it’s just chicken soup, why are you so excited about this_. Kay is focused, too, and he loves his work, but not like this. He doesn’t seem to grow a few centimetres because the clouds set off so nicely against the rooftops.

They walk past the [palace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Castle) to the theatre square and though Cassian is the first to admit he doesn’t have her eye for visuals, the opera _does_ look stunning against the pearly white sky. Jyn laments they only brought the small camera, but as the material will probably only be used as transition shots, he doubts it’ll make much of a difference. The Zwinger, while also gorgeous, leaves Cassian slightly disappointed; the courtyard enclosed in the beautiful baroque building isn’t really much to look at, just a few shut-off fountains in the middle and a lot of red gravel, and the biggest archway is covered in scaffolding due to restoration work.

Still, on the small screen of Jyn’s camera it looks perfect.

.

When they enter the beautiful entrance hall of the museum – that had probably once been a courtyard and had just got a big glass ceiling in recent times – Jyn suddenly slows her steps.

“Is that the name of the museum?” she asks slowly, pointing to the headline of a poster nearby.

“I think so, yeah. I think it means something like _green cave_ or something?” He shrugs. “The Wikipedia article said it was to do with the colour of the marble inside.”

“Green _vault_ ,” she corrects softly, coming to a halt.

Cassian frowns at her strange expression. “Is… are you alright?”

“Yeah, no, I – I just remembered,” she replies in an absent-minded tone, taking another look at the place. “My mother talked about this place. My dad took her.”

He faintly remembers her saying her parents had passed, so while he isn’t quite sure how to interpret her tone, he’s pretty sure this is a bad thing.

“Okay, are you… we can go somewhere else.”

“No, no,” she says, shaking her head and putting a wobbly smile on her face. “Let’s see it. My mum liked it,” she adds in a more certain tone. “She was a geologist, she… she was really impressed by all the different stones they had. I just… I wasn’t aware that this was in Dresden, that’s all.”

“Okay,” he replies slowly. “I’ll get the tickets.”


	3. Chapter 3

The interior of the museum, far more still than the entrance hall, feels like an entirely different world despite the masses of tourists shuffling through the rooms around them. The intricate ceilings, the black-and-white tiles, the columns set with marble and the mirrors and the windows… he doesn’t need the hundreds of priceless glittering treasures nestled into the glass cabinets around them to feel like he’s stumbled into _The Hobbit_ or something out of a fairy tale book. The decadence surrounding them is dizzying, but also undeniably beautiful.

“How much you think the stuff in this room is worth?” he asks quietly, eying an intricate statue inlaid with countless precious stones, and Jyn shrugs.

“Nothing. How’d you sell this without getting caught?”

He grins. “Good point. Still though…”

“It is… it is pretty,” she concedes softly, stepping closer to the cabinet – and thereby also him, though he has just enough sense left to know that she didn’t do that on purpose. It’s still a lot more than he was prepared for, somehow, with the glittering jewels and all the moving figures in the old mirrors and the faint daylight filtering through the cracks in the blinds in front of the windows catching in the grey and green and gold of her eyes and…

He shakes his head to try and clear it of these dumb thoughts, and walks over to the next cabinet like the oddly shaped goblet in it was the most interesting object in the entire world.

 _Come on, Andor._ He’s a professional. He _is._ He can _be_ professional. He’s too old to be acting like this, not to mention he’s probably coming off as the height of creepy. She is a brilliant, young, attractive woman who has absolutely no reason to be interested in some nerd who stars in a niche Mexican food show, and she’s here because it’s good work and she gets to travel and she’s getting paid for it, and his weird crush is probably the last thing she wants or needs and he can honestly not blame her.

No, he needs to stop this.

He buries his hands in the pockets of his jacket and makes his way to the next exhibition room, bypassing about twelve objects without so much as a glance, and doesn’t wait for her.

.

“Did you see those ivory thingies? I don’t get how you’d make these tiny holes without breaking it,” she says lightly, walking up to where he’s leaning by the elevator near the exit.

“Yeah, no idea,” he mutters, pushes off the wall, slides his phone back into his pocket and walks towards the doors. “Should we get some lunch?”

“Definitely, yeah.” Jyn rolls her shoulder with a little grimace. “I need to sit down for a while.”

The camera equipment she is lugging around with her probably isn’t helping, and he’d gladly carry it for a bit, but – no. _Leave her alone. Don’t be creepy._

“Okay.”

She adjusts the strap of her bag and catches up with him. “You have your eye on anything?”

“Hm?”

“If you have your eye on anything?”

“Have my eye on what?”

She rolls her eyes. “ _Food,”_ she snaps and buries her hands in her pockets with a huff. “Christ, sorry. You don’t have to talk to me.”

Great, now he’s being rude. There _has_ to be a state of being between creepy and rude for him, for Heaven’s sake, it can’t possibly be that hard. He’s a normal person, and she’s a normal person, and they can spend time together without it being… whatever this has turned into.

“Sorry,” he mutters, shaking his head and forcing a smile that doesn’t feel like it comes out great. “Not really, no. Let’s just find a restaurant nearby.”

She sighs. “Won’t they be pretty touristy around here?”

He shrugs, and tries to ignore the fact that she’s very pointedly not looking at him – which is, after all, kind of what he was aiming for. “Yeah, probably. But I could do with a chair, too.”

They march past the [long mural](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BCrstenzug) that Kay ranted to them the night before (the largest porcelain artwork in the world, supposedly, which Luke somehow got really excited about and had them all take pictures in front of the procession of Saxonian kings), and Cassian feels deeply annoyed with himself. How is him trying to behave like a professional, or really just a normal, functioning adult, ruining the comfortable silence they usually have?

Predictably, they run straight into the early Striezelmarkt crowds. He isn’t in the mood to fight his way across the Neumarkt, and Jyn doesn’t look like she is, either, so he turns left into the narrow alleyway leading down to the river.

“Maybe over there? At least it’s got a German name,” he mutters, and she gives an absent little nod.

They wash into the slightly overheated restaurant along with a handful of other tourists and miraculously find a small table nestled into a corner, and he is flooded with relief at finally being able to sit down after the three hours spent crouching in front of glass cabinets.

Until he fully realises that this table is _very_ small and she’s sitting at arm’s length from him whether she wants to or not.

“Is… is this okay?” he asks, probably too quiet for the noisy room.

Her green eyes flicker up at him and for a moment, he isn’t sure if she knows what he means, but then she nods.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he mutters, and quickly drops his gaze onto the menu.

After far too much deliberation, he decides on duck with the traditional side dishes.

“The trailer dropped half an hour ago,” he says after another awkward moment of silence once the waiter has left. “Do you wanna watch it?”

“Nah, it’s too loud in here anyway,” she replies with a shrug, then smiles faintly.

“What?”

“Luke’s gonna be pissed at us.”

Cassian frowns. “Why?”

“Well, the lighting in here is shit,” she says. “The food will not show up well on camera at all.”

“We could ask if we could take it outside for a moment.” He feels a faint grin tug at his lips at the thought, and Jyn scoffs.

“ _You_ can ask that.”

“Or we just film it for Instagram and blame the lighting on my phone camera.”

Jyn grins. “Yeah, sure. Let’s blame your fancy _iPhone_ camera, like that’s gonna work, you bloody snob…”

The waiter returns with their food and Jyn leans back in her seat. “Well then, let’s see your camera skills, Andor.”

Cassian rolls his eyes at her and fishes his phone out of his jacket. “Okay, Jyn, this doesn’t show up at all, so tell us what you’re eating –“

“Nothing, the food _just_ got here,” she says, still with her little mischievous grin, and Cassian throws her a pointed look.

“Okay, I have [shashlik ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shashlik)and [pepper lecsó](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecs%C3%B3),” she concedes with a shrug. “That’s not exactly _German,_ but it smells amazing,” she adds, leaning closer to her plate and inhaling deeply.

“It’s okay, I have the traditional food covered here,” he says, panning down onto his own plate. “You guys probably can’t see that but that’s a duck roast with [potato dumplings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kn%C3%B6del#Varieties) and red cabbage, and it looks pretty amazing.”

He ends the video and stuffs the phone back into his pocket with a smile. “There. Done. Now Luke can’t be mad at us.”

“I took a few pictures in the exhibition,” she says, cutting her meat loose from the wooden skewer. “I can upload them later.”

“Perfect, he’ll love that.” He takes a bite of his dumpling that’s deliciously salty and soaked in perfectly seasoned, greasy gravy, and sighs. “This is amazing. Like, I would die if I had to eat it for three days in a row, probably, but it’s amazing.”

“That one dumpling doesn’t _look_ great,” Jyn says, frowning at his plate. “It looks kinda grey. Is that on purpose?”

“They’re made with some raw potatoes as well as cooked ones, and if they’re left out for a while before cooking, they oxidate, that’s why it looks like that.”

She throws him a pointed look. “Do you just know _everything_ about food?”

“No, I googled this last night. It’s traditional Christmas food,” he says with a grin. “Oh, and I saw a [desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarkk%C3%A4ulchen) on the menu that I really want to try, it’s a local speciality… but we’ll have to share that because it’s made with potatoes too so I don’t think I could finish it on my own.”

“A potato desert?”

“Yeah, it’s a dough made from potatoes and curd, and flour and eggs obviously, and fried? Kind of like a pancake, but –“

He breaks off and frowns at the small window behind Jyn.

“What?”

“Nothing, I just… I think it’s snowing.”

“Really?” She immediately drops the skewer back onto her plate and whips around in her seat, edging closer to the window. “It’s been _ages_ since I’ve last had any snow,” she mutters, staring at the tiny white dots swirling down onto the people in the street with a glowing little smile tugging at her lips.

Damn it, he wasn’t going to stare at her.

“Why are you so determined for it to snow?” he asks, and hopes it doesn’t sound like he’s mocking her, because he’s just genuinely curious – he doesn’t see much advantage in semi-frozen water seeping into every crook in his clothing and into the equipment later when they’re out on the market.

“Because it’s what’s missing from this place!” she says, green eyes glinting at him across the table. “This is – [this is fairy tale land ](http://ruby-red-inky-blue.tumblr.com/tagged/i-live-in-the-country-of-fairytales)here, okay? And you need snow for winter fairy tales. That’s just the law.”

He grins down at his duck. “If you say so.”

Jyn shakes her head and returns to her food. “You’ll see what I mean.”

.

By the time Cassian drains the last coffee from his cup, their conversation has returned to normal, and for a few minutes they even seem to have found back to their comfortable silence. He feels a little drowsy despite the caffeine, not helped by the warm air in the room and the swirling flakes of snow outside the window and the soft clinking of Jyn’s spoon against her teacup.

“So, what’s the plan for tonight?”

“Well, we have an appointment with a baker who’s going to tell us about how he makes the… [that Christmas bread with the hard name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stollen#Dresden_Stollen_festival),” he replies with a shrug, “and we’ll talk to someone about [gingerbread](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Striezelmarkt#Food_and_drinks), I think, and there’ll be candied nuts and so on and some traditional Christmas decoration stands to look at, and apart from that I think we’re supposed to get drunk on various mulled wine specialties.”

Jyn grins. “Sometimes I like this job.”

He scoffs and gets to his feet. “Come on, we should probably see if the others have made it back yet.”

“Kes probably fell down a rock so Shara could come rescue him,” Jyn says with a scoff, wrapping her scarf back around her neck, and Cassian grins.

“Bad strategy. She might leave him there.”

“She wouldn’t really,” Jyn replies and zips her thin jacket shut. “She’s _so_ done for, poor dear. She just thinks she can keep him from finding out.”

“This is them trying to hide it?” he mutters, shaking his head, and pushes open the door. A waft of crisp, cold air and a few snowflakes blow into his face before he’s even set foot onto the street, and he can’t deny it’s pleasant after the stuffy air inside.

The sky has cleared a little, now a pale blue with broad strokes of greys and whites, and the sun is already low over the roofs of the city, tinging the bright stone around them in washed-out pink.

Not a lot of snow has fallen, just enough to cover the rooftops and the stone steps leading up to [Brühl’s Terrace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C3%BChl's_Terrace) in a thin layer of white, the rest shuffled into the cracks between the cobblestones by the feet of the tourists. But as they head back towards the Frauenkirche and the little stands and huts scattered across the market, with the little lights gleaming from the Christmas trees and the torches flickering in the wind, he can’t deny it adds a final touch to everything.

“Okay, yes,” he says softly, “I do see what you mean.”

Jyn grins at him from behind her handheld camera with a happy gleam in her greyish eyes, snowflakes already clinging to her dark hair.

He really hopes he’ll get her in front of a camera too tonight. She looks like she belongs into this place, and he doesn’t think this is a sight anyone should be deprived of.

“I can’t wait to see what it looks like in the dark,” she says, still smiling, and stops to film two little kids near the church trying to catch snowflakes, and he nods absent-mindedly.

“Yeah,” he mutters, then finally manages to tear himself out of his thoughts – staring _again,_ damn it, Andor – and turns away, disoriented for a moment. “I guess our best chance of catching the others is at the hotel?”

.

Jyn had, in some ways, been right about Kes falling off a rock, as it turned out.

“He’s upstairs, taking a shower,” Shara explains when they meet her and Luke in the lobby. “That idiot tripped over a root and landed in a big puddle, so we had to listen to him whine about how wet his left foot was the whole way back.”

There’s a fond grin on her lips the whole time, so he doesn’t really buy any of what she is saying.

“Have you guys seen the trailer yet?” Luke asks, bobbing up and down in excitement.

“Not yet,” Jyn says, setting down her bag on the couch and dropping down beside it. “Guess I could watch it now, though, if that’ll make you happy,” she adds drily when she sees his disappointed face, and he grins.

Shara rolls her eyes, then plops down on the sofa next to Jyn to get a better view of her phone. “He wouldn’t shut up about the damn thing for a minute, and he kept complaining there was no reception. In a national park.”

Cassian sighs and leans against the wall.

It’s not that there’s anything _wrong_ with the trailer. No, it’s well made, well-edited; it has some great shots of their previous stops, the food looks amazing all around and nobody is caught at an unfavourable angle. It is pretty much the same one Luke’s showed them when they returned from Munich, as promised, and he likes the music they’ve put over it as well, it’s not too dramatic or too cheesy. It’s just…

It’s the way he’s looking at her, caught on tape. More than once. More than twice. And, well, he knows it’s probably showing, somehow, which is why he’s trying to stop doing it, but… he wasn’t aware it was _that_ obvious. It’s painful to look at.

It’s not that he’s _embarrassed,_ really. Well, he is a little, but that’s not quite it. Mostly, he feels bad for her sake, because he can already picture the position this might wind up putting her in, and he’s trying his hardest not to be angry at the editing team for putting any of that footage in. That’s unreasonable, of course – it’s perfectly good footage of them trying food, which is, after all, the kind of footage this trailer needs, but still…

Damn it.

He throws the group a small glance when he recognises the music that plays near the end, and catches Shara throwing him a sympathetic glance. Luke doesn’t seem to have caught anything out of the ordinary, which he has to admit doesn’t really surprise him. Jyn’s eyes are still fixed on the screen.

She doesn’t look _mortified,_ which he supposes is a start.

“Well? What do you think?”

Shara shrugs and leans back in her seat. “We all look good, which is the main thing.”

Luke throws her a pointed look and she shrugs. “What? You can’t tell me this show has never been about making Cassian look unfairly handsome.”

“That’s not the –“ Cassian says, but she interrupts him.

“That’s what you say, Andor, but I’ve seen it and you can’t tell me that’s not what’s going on. C’mon, Jyn, you’ve seen it too, help me out here.”

“No tv show tries to make their host look _ugly,_ Shara,” Jyn replies curtly, then throws Luke a thin smile and adds: “I like the music.”

Luke nods. “People are really liking it so far. And I think it’ll air on tv later tonight, so that’ll hopefully give it a boost as well.”

“Great,” Cassian says, which is all the enthusiasm he feels like he can muster, and pushes off the wall. “You know what, I’m gonna go get a shower too.”

“Yeah, I’ll see if I can get another coffee here somewhere,” Jyn mutters and grabs her bag.

“Can I get more excitement next time?” Luke calls after them, and Cassian catches Jyn throwing him an odd little glance before she turns the corner.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guysss it is DONE OH MY GOD FINALLY

If Cassian was appreciative of the snow before, then he’s head over heels in _love_ with it when they leave the hotel to finally have the filming session they’ve come to Dresden to make. Prague Street is, despite its less-than-pretty commercial architecture and the unromantic McDonald’s ad on the building across the square, a magical sight, and the slight awkwardness that has been hanging in the air for the last two hours disperses in the first gust of wind that blows snow from one of the trees around their heads.

There are baubles and wooden ornaments and paper stars adorning the sprigs of fir crowning the roofs of the booths, and the few snowflakes still whirling through the air are caught in the glow of the fairy lights strung up everywhere. The air smells of mushrooms and roasted bread and garlic and grilled meat, and over the chatter of the hundreds of tourists shuffling their way through the narrow paths between the little huts, goddamn _Last Christmas_ is clanging from a speaker somewhere.

This is a level of cheesiness that his besotted-puppy-look in that trailer could never hope to compete with, and he loves this place for that fact already. Nobody is going to notice. Not here. He’ll be overshadowed by the sticky-sweet, picture-perfect romance of this place, and this realisation is a huge relief.

Then again – there’s still a strange look sitting in Jyn’s eyes.

“I thought this was supposed to be the _least_ busy day of the week?” Kes asks lightly, trying to squeeze past a group of foreign tourists without losing them and tearing Cassian out of his thoughts, and Draven sighs.

“It _is._ ”

“Well, it’s good that my job isn’t too easy,” Kes mutters, shaking his head and shaking snow out of the hood of his jacket. He and Draven, Cassian has come to realise, are mostly united in their disgruntlement for the cold and the snow, and seem to be the most immune to the atmosphere of this place – well, Kay is pretty immune to the romance of it all as well, but he spots a historical landmark every five steps, so he too seems to have taken an unreasonable liking to the city.

They fight their way up the crowded shopping street, serenaded by a children’s choir on the Altmarkt and Kay’s muffled cursing as he tries to make his way through the crowds without shaking the camera too much – Jyn has reluctantly agreed that he is the more sensible choice for camerawork in the situation at hand. The foot he has on her gives him an undeniable advantage.

And for the next few hours, despite the tourists and despite the fact that their director’s sour mood needs to be handled with a lot of mulled wine, and despite the fact that his phone pings with twitter alerts every minute much to Luke’s delight until he shuts the damn thing off, the job goes exactly the way it’s supposed to. He immerses himself in the smell of the spices and the fires, talks to a baker about [_Christstollen_ ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stollen)and about how the dough is decreed to have tons of butter in it and how much of a luxury these foods were throughout the history of this place, and Kay catches Jyn as she tries the finished Stollen and gets a look on her face that describes better than any of Cassian’s words how perfect it is, somehow, sweet and satisfying even though it’s strangely hard and they technically know how much butter there is in it. They try their way through regular  _[Glühwein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulled_wine#Gl%C3%BChwein) _ and mulled white wine and hot eggnog with cream and [_Feuerzangenbowle_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feuerzangenbowle), which is mulled wine that for some reason has a big sugar cube mounted over it that is soaked in rum and lit on fire and that definitely is nothing more than a fancy way to get drunk more quickly. They try different types of [German gingerbread](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebkuchen), including but not limited to the local Pulsnitzer Lebkuchen, and have [potato pancakes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato_pancake) and freshly made _[Pfannkuchen](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berliner_\(doughnut\)), _ a type of stuffed doughnut, and candied nuts, until Cassian feels like he is on far too much of a high to still be in front of a camera and he stops feeling the damn cold and the snow glows in the light of the lanterns a little more than it should.

At some point, hours later, he skips out on the next round of mulled wine – he just feels like he’s sobering up again – and makes his way up the steps to Brühl’s Terrace with the vague hope to stare out onto the river and perhaps clear his head a little, because this whole place is too beautiful and feels too much like a warm, fuzzy dream for him to be this drunk and not do something stupid at some point.

There’s a little wind blowing up from the water and the snowfall has finally died away completely, and between the trees it is suddenly very quiet and still.

And apparently, he’s not the only one who’s needed that.

“You’ve… you’ve seen the comments, right?” she asks softly, and he doesn’t need to ask what she’s talking about.

“Yeah, the, uh… the tweets and all were pretty hard to miss.” He sighs and idly brushes snow of the wrought-iron balustrade.

“Has… that kinda thing happened to you before?”

“Yes, once or twice, when I was still doing telenovelas,” he replies with a shrug. “It was a little different then, though, I mean… it was further away. In the papers and on tv shows, not… not like this. I don’t really remember Social Media being that big a deal back then.”

“How long did that last?”

“Most of it went away a few months after I left the show, but… I don’t know, people have brought it back up over the years. But yeah, the worst of it was while the show aired.”

“So that means a year of this?” she asks in a strangely flat voice, staring out at a train that passes over a bridge down the river.

He doesn’t really have an answer for that.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he says instead, after a while. “I should be the only one who has to deal with… with that side of things. Not the crew.”

“You didn’t start this,” she gives back darkly, and he sighs.

“They didn’t mean…”

“I know. I know they don’t get why it’s a big deal, but…”

 _He_ gets it. He gets that she’s been alone for a long time, and that she doesn’t need anyone else but she’s still lonely, and that it sucks to be needled about something you don’t have. Especially if some part of you wishes that you did.

“It’s not an excuse,” he says softly. “But I guess it would’ve happened with or without them, so… you should probably blame me. I’m… I’m supposed to be far better with having cameras pointed at me.”

She laughs a little, staring down at the ships below them. “You know, a few of those commenters were convinced you’re actually just a really, really _good_ actor. Like, that you staged this for ratings.”

He feels a strange smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think I was ever that good. There’s a reason I stopped doing it.”

“Yeah, I didn’t really…” She sighs softly. “I wasn’t saying I believe this is about the show.”

She doesn’t sound like she buys into the theory, but he’s seen her write messages to her friend earlier when they were standing in the elevator. Long messages, and there’d been the trailer attached to one of them, so he has a feeling maybe Bodhi does buy into it.

“No. This is about…” He takes a deep breath and thanks God for the abnormal amounts of sugar and alcohol he’s consumed tonight, because he doesn’t think he’d get the next sentence out under different circumstances. Still, even though he tries to force himself to look up at her, his gaze flickers back to the lights dancing on the dark water below before so much as another word crosses his lips.

“I like you, and that shouldn’t be a big deal and it shouldn’t be anybody’s business, but now it is and…” He runs a hand through his hair that feels damp with molten snow. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that she wants to say something, so he hastily adds: “I wasn’t… I wasn’t going to say any of this, because we’re supposed to work together and this is not professional behaviour and… I honestly wasn’t going to say anything, I was trying to cut it out, but… but since everyone’s already saying you’re being used for ratings, I thought I should…” He breaks off, closes his eyes, exhales, grips the cold rail with both hands. “I’m sorry. Maybe I’ve had too much to drink, or...”

He trails off, and she’s quiet for so long that his brain has run through about forty useless strategies to try and back out of what he just said before she speaks again.

“You… like me,” she repeats, and somehow, miraculously, there’s a small grin tugging at her lips. “ _Like?_ Are we in fifth grade or something?”

He laughs. “Actually, that would make this a whole lot simpler.”

“You and I remember fifth grade very differently, then.”

He sighs and leans against the rail, but he manages to look at her this time around. “Seriously, I… I kind of wish we could’ve met somewhere else,” he says softly. “Without all this.”

“What, you mean without the mood lighting and the snow and the baroque skyline and the music and the hot wine?” she gives back lightly, her smile turning a little bitter. “Where’d be the fun in that?”

He smiles and shakes his head at her, then turns to look back at the lanterns of the Augustus bridge reflecting on the dark water. “Without the attention.”

“Yeah,” she says quietly after a moment. “I could’ve been a tourist, or like, shooting artsy footage of swallows over the skyline or something.” She sighs and absent-mindedly starts drawing patterns into the snow on the rail with her finger. “Do you even have swallows in Mexico?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s a type of bird. Kinda smallish, they fly really high up and they sort of glide, you can… wait,” she says, fishing her phone out of her pocket. “Okay, Wikipedia says they’re called _hirun-_ God, no, I won’t even try to pronounce that,” she says with a headshake and holds out her phone to him. “That bird.”

“Oh yes. Yes, we have those,” he says after a quick glance at the screen, then says slowly, in a voice that betrays more than he would be comfortable with if he were sober: “I would’ve liked that. I could’ve shown you around. Teach you how to say that word,” he adds with a grin, and she laughs.

“I don’t know anything about birds. Nobody would pay me to do that.”

“I would.”

“Okay. Okay, next time I’m out of a job, I’ll hold you to that.”

He nods and stares out into the darkness for a while, then turns back to look at her. Her eyes are soft and dark in the faint light, and he feels like they find his a little too easily. They have always seemed to do that, really, and always seen just a little too much.

“You don’t sound like you’re angry with me.”

She scoffs and pushes a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. “No, Cassian, I’m not mad that you _like_ me. I –“

“You really don’t have to say anything just because I –“

“Well, you’re being pretty dense about this so I feel like I have to,” she gives back flatly, which shuts him up. “I’m not mad that you like me. I just…” She gives an angry little shrug and resumes in a slightly defensive tone: “It’s like you said. This… this makes everything… _weird._ And I kinda wish it wasn’t.”

There’s an implication in this, and it takes him a while to compute what she’s trying to say.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. So… you can stop trying to not talk to me or whatever you were trying to do this morning, because that was awful, and besides it’s not like…” She scoffs and gestures towards him. “Have you met yourself? It’s pretty hard to imagine that anyone would be appalled at the notion of you wanting them around. So, since I’m…” She pauses, takes a deep breath and resumes, very quietly and fixing the tips of her shoes: “People already have all the wrong ideas, so I guess… I guess we could at least stop threading on eggshells around each other because… because I… I like having you around, too. And I guess you can tell me if at some point, the rest will… get less weird.”

It would really help if there was a little less light, because then maybe he wouldn’t see her furiously blushing through that last part and then maybe he wouldn’t feel like there was pleasantly warm liquid pooling in his stomach all over again.

She looks so pretty with her ruffled hair with the snowflakes in it and her lips that are stained red from the wine and – damn it, it’s not fair. It’s not fair that he gets to stand here with this woman in a moment this beautiful and kissing her would be the very worst idea he could have. It’s not fair.

“If it doesn’t, we can always fall back on the bird documentary,” he mutters and she smiles a little.

“We… we should probably get back to the others.”

“Right. I guess I owe you another drink at least, too.” He shoves his hands into his pockets, takes a small breath and makes his way towards the church, but at the top of the stairs, she catches him by the sleeve, that strange little smile still on her lips.

“Look, I’m… I’m glad to be here. Don’t think I’m not.”

She’s so close now, and the lights from the street catch in the green of her eyes. It’s not fair.

But it’s far more than he’s hoped for this morning, and all the days before that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that is a "swallows in Mexico" in-joke, because.  
> Once the night before a huge exam my friend came to help me study and the only thing open on my computer was a wikipedia article on birds native to Mexico, because there was a flashback in TWTaS that mentioned a swallow once in a subordinate sentence, and because I have my priorities sorted, I needed to use my time to make sure that they actually *have* swallows there. I then had to explain to my friend what I was doing with that article.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, as you see I wasn't able to take a lot of pictures beforehand, so I resorted to linking ALL the wikipedia articles (somehow everything here has an English wikipedia entry??)  
> Also the title is from my favourite German Christmas Carol, [Leise rieselt der Schnee](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0GvgZjXjIA&list=PLw-jTttAiZYjDtmjN69R6iR_N_IN6MlyY&index=1) (it is surprisingly hard to find a good recording I'm sorry)
> 
> This is how it goes on from that line:  
> "In den Herzen ist's warm  
> Still schweigt Kummer und Harm  
> Sorge des Lebens verhallt  
> Freue dich, Weihnacht kommt bald"  
> (" **In the hearts it is warm**  
>  silenced are sorrow and anguish  
> worries of life fade away  
> rejoice, Christmas is coming soon")


End file.
